Alan Shearer gives the positive and negative of Chelsea 3 Newcastle 1

Alan Shearer spoke as he found on Saturday lunchtime.

The Newcastle legend not getting too downhearted after watching his team lose to Chelsea.

Newcastle took a surprise 12th minute lead through Dwight Gayle, very reminiscent of the game at Old Trafford last month.

That game saw NUFC collapse 4-1 to Manchester United but today was not quite so dramatic.

Chelsea did turn it around before the break and led 2-1 at half-time but it took until the 74th minute before they eventually finished Newcastle off.

Alan Shearer describing it with a heavy dose of realism ‘Effort was there but beaten by a much better team’.

Rafa Benitez is of course praying that new owners come in very soon and enable better quality players to come in.

Nobody expects Newcastle to go man for man with Chelsea at the moment but sadly it was simply damage limitation at Stamford Bridge today.

Alan Shearer:

“No complaints today.

“Effort was there but beaten by a much better team.

“When you go shopping in Poundstretcher what do you expect?

“It’s a Championship squad playing in the Premier League.

“Whoever we picked they’d have been better than us.”

Stats from BBC Sport:

Chelsea 3 Newcastle 1

Goals:

Newcastle: Gayle 12

Chelsea: Hazard 21, 74 Morata 33

Possession was Chelsea 66% Newcastle 34%

Total shots were  Chelsea 23 Newcastle 8

Shots on target were  Chelsea 9 Newcastle 2

Corners were  Chelsea 11 Newcastle 4

Referee: Kevin Friend

Newcastle United:

Darlow, Manquillo, Clark, Lejeune, Mbemba, Ritchie, Diame (Shelvey 75), Merino (Yedlin 85), Murphy, Perez (Hayden 62), Gayle

Unused Subs:

Elliot, Joselu, Mitrovic, Aarons

Crowd: 41,538 (Newcastle 3,000)